TV, Baseball & Moments Bonding with My Dad

First off, this will mention the Red Sox a lot and a generational love for Boston. Second, I will be mentioning someone very close to me, Declan, my trans dad or “VagDad” as he would say, who introduced me to the team and how there can be a deep love for connecting to your family through sports. Watching them late at night on TV, through the 2004 American League Championship Series was the highlight of watching the Red Sox play when I was younger.

I’ll set the scene, I’m about to turn ten years old, moving from state to state because of my other dad’s job in nuclear power. I end up in Michigan for a few years in a townhome where our TV resided in the finished basement, cold but comfy at times. Not much decorated the basement, but there was a couch me and my dad would sit on and hold each other’s hands tight as games went into tied scores and sudden losses. I remember my other dad heading to bed early, even on the weekends, he wasn’t and still isn’t someone to stay up too late. So when he went away, the games often were still going strong.

I was slowly but surely becoming a big fan of the Boston Red Sox. It was inevitable, with my great-grandmother having lived her whole life in Pepperell, MA, and my dad, Declan, being born in Lowell, MA. Visiting Fenway Park for the first time, seeing the smiles on my dad’s face as he told me all about the history and rules is something that remains with me every time I watch a game in person or most often on TV. But there’s a bigger memory that remains with me beyond first-time visits to Boston and singing “Sweet Caroline” during the seventh-inning stretch. What sticks with me is what my dad taught me as we watched the Red Sox struggle and push their way into that World Series Championship title back in 2004.

That moment on TV? It hit my dad in the gut. My grandfather Ed, my dad’s dad, passed away in 2003 and had never witnessed the Red Sox win the World Series title. A Sox fan his whole life, even through his personal flaws, was something he passed on to my dad and therefore passed on to me. I thank him a lot for that. Televised baseball has the means to connect across miles and through generations, continuing the hope similar to the kind my grandfather had. Me and my dad saw the iconic moments like Schilling’s bloody sock and we held each other tight as it felt like the team wouldn’t even make it through the first couple of innings of a critical game, only to come back moments later in a stunning set of memories and home runs.

The Boston Red Sox meant and still means a lot to my family. It’s the fun of rivalries with other teams and learning about baseball as it’s pointed out to younger me as my eyes are glued to the screen as Ortiz hits it over The Green Monster. But there’s something that I continue to say in my head that my dad instilled in me. That saying is, “The game isn’t over till it’s over.” It may seem simple enough, but it’s difficult. Because turning off the TV screen as the game appears to indicate a loss can end up being a mistake itself. My dad kept me watching and low-and-behold they fucking did it. They broke “The Curse” in 2004. As my dad wept, for the win itself and what my grandfather missed out on, the realization came in like a rush of waves. This isn’t just a baseball game on TV…it’s a connection, it’s family, and it’s a love for the totality of it all.